“The super—” the woman said, and she looked at me with a flirtatious twinkle, as if to say: I got the word right, didn’t I? — “the super says he was quiet, shy, polite man but not to share confidences or making friends.”
“Is there a central registry of Prague citizens?”
“I don’t know.if you will pardon me, I may make observation. If the man wanted really you to visit he could gaven you veezeet kart with good address.”
“True,” I said, “but he just pulled card out of his pocket in fit of enthusiasm, seeing how much I liked author we were discussing. You see, we just met at museum, so perhaps by mistake he gave”—I almost said gaven—“me an old card.”
I was about to reveal what Graf had told me, but I held back, afraid of making a laughingstock of the old man. If the super had known, he surely would have revealed it by now, with words like: Ah, yes, the man who always says he’s K’s son. Yes, that one, he moved out more than a year ago.
But the woman’s observation, despite my attempt at defending him, was absolutely right. Why did Graf mislead me? Or was the museum director’s international sign language correct?
Another thing bothered me: I should have asked Graf if he had any brothers or sisters.
I thanked the woman, bowed slightly to the super, and walked away. Then it hit me, l’esprit d’escalier, why didn’t I invite her, as an act of gratitude, invite her to the concert?
So Karoly Graf, K’s putative son, had moved. Why indeed hadn’t he given me his correct address? Or was it really an oversight, a mistake? If he did this intentionally, maliciously, he was truly an oddball. He had proudly shared this astonishing bit of information, without prodding or coercion, knowing full well the effect it would have on a lover of K’s works. With one hand he had given me important information and raised my spirits, and with the other — literally stretching out his right hand and giving me his false card — he had crushed me. And without realizing it, he had ruined his chances for a bit of fame.
Did he consider my incredulity an insult? I wondered. But that’s impossible, since he had given me the card before I expressed my doubts. But then again, in mystic, golem-filled, K-inspired Prague, time and cause and effect followed no natural laws but an ineluctable order of their own, more determined by string theory’s ten dimensions and time-devouring black holes than by age-old laws of predictable nature.
What was I to make of Karoly Graf? Knowing that my next move was futile, but pursuing it nevertheless, I looked him up in the telephone directory; I went to the Bureau of Internal Affairs, Citizens Registry Department, in Prague; I returned to the K Museum and spoke to Dr. Hruska — all in vain.
Confession: I had to revise my “officiousness” depiction of Dr. Hruska, for he welcomed me warmly. Too bad we sometimes form opinions and make judgments of people too quickly.
“Has Graf come back since I last saw you?”
“No.”
“Would you kindly call me at my apartment hotel,” and I gave him the number, “if he should come by, and get from him his current address and phone number?”
“With pleasure.” Then the director repeated his admonition: “Don’t waste your time.”
“Dr. Hruska, I know I am wasting my time. You are absolutely right. Still, if there is the slightest chance of finding him, I’d like to take advantage of it, for I want to interview him for my film.”
“Film? You’re making a film?” He brightened. His eyes sparkled.
“Yes.”
“Would you consider, I mean, wouldn’t you like to include our little museum?”
“Of course. What a question! I had planned to.”
Dr. Hruska brushed the side of his hair and temples as if I was about to film him. I wondered if, like the shamesh, he too would pull out a little mirror from his jacket pocket and primp.
I thanked the director and left. A magnet drew me back to the faux address on Graf’s card. Perhaps the hope of seeing that pretty woman again. I met a few of the residents, older working-class folk who had probably never heard of K. In halting English — one helped the other, sharing the sixty-six English words they knew — they recalled Graf as an amiable man. But they knew nothing about him. Or had American hospital privacy laws affected them too?
Twice more during the next week I returned to the museum. Each time Dr. Hruska smiled, perked up, thinking he would be filmed that day. No, he hadn’t seen Karoly Graf.
“In fact, I myself am now wondering why he suddenly stopped coming. I hope he is well.” Then, with a sly smile he added, “I even begin to miss him, for he was a very nice chap, no trouble at all, almost like a mild thorn, well, not quite like a thorn, more like a mild itch on the leg or a tiny canker sore inside your mouth that you get used to, your tongue is always probing there, and that you miss when it goes away.”
I had so many things to think of. I thought of the film that was still only in my head. I thought of the girl in the blue beret. Would she show up at tonight’s concert? I thought of the golem’s acquaintance, Eva Langbrot, whom I still hadn’t gone to see. And if thinking isn’t too mild a verb, my head was flooded by thoughts of Karoly Graf, K’s missing son.
The whole thing didn’t make any sense. Perhaps Graf had indeed inadvertently given me an older card that somehow had remained in his pocket instead of the newer card that had his right address. But then, why had he stopped coming to the museum? Unless, of course, he had fallen ill.
And more, what person, even if his assertion were absolutely true, would immediately share such a confidence with a stranger, even if that stranger loved K’s work as much as I did? One would think that such a person would be cautious, first invite his new friend to a café, sit and talk, and then tell him he had something fabulous to share with him about K. And if he were a poor man or in modest circumstances, as Karoly Graf no doubt was, if I were he, I would suggest some kind of quid pro quo, for like time, information or astonishing revelation is also one’s stock in trade.
That’s what I would have done if I were K’s son and wanted to share this bombshell with a man I’d just met at the K museum who was crazy about K. But first I would test that someone, determine if he really understood and appreciated K’s writings and if he deserved to be privy to such amazing information. I wouldn’t play with him or tease him or draw the revelation out inordinately, as heroes of folk tales sometimes do, or as an older woman does in initiating a young lover into the joys of lovemaking. But if I were K’s son, I would not rush. I would bide my time, balancing deliberation and speed.
I must say it felt rather good — for a few moments it made me feel very special — nurturing this fantasy in my mind, turning the tables on Karoly Graf, I becoming K’s son and he becoming the layman, the doc filmmaker who loved K and who wandered into the K Museum in Prague and was soon to become the possessor of a stunning secret. A secret that Karoly Graf had revealed how many times to how many people? I reveled in the delights of my fantasy, the secret that I possessed and was so willing to share with a select few — hopefully not like Karoly Graf, who no doubt shared it with the unselect many.
Too bad I couldn’t film the delights of my fantasy. Oh, how if the situation were reversed, what a time I would have had in concocting a delicious scenario. Not only would I be K’s son, I would create several other children, some living in Prague, others elsewhere. And, why not? yes, an entire family. And my revelation would not be a simple declarative sentence: I am K’s son. My revelation, offered slowly, gradually, would be the equivalent of a complex sentence, with inner and outer clauses, not necessarily balanced, but as nuanced and ambiguous and multilayered as K’s prose. And then that astonishing many-phrased revelation could be reduced like a rich broth into the mouth-watering gravy of a crisp, declarative sentence with only subject, verb, and possessive: